How did classic Hollywood’s special-effects artists create the extraordinary illusions that thrilled and delighted generations of moviegoers long before the advent of digital technology? In this new original series, visual-effects artist Craig Barron and sound designer Ben Burtt dig into the stud...
While other budding directors were honing their craft in film school, Richard Linklater was getting a crash course in the art and history of cinema his own way: by watching anything and everything he could at the local repertory theaters in Houston and Austin, where he discovered the world-cinema...
Creative Marriages
This director-actor duo collaborated on a string of genre-bending films anchored by fiercely independent women.
In 2009, Sean Baker (THE FLORIDA PROJECT, TANGERINE) sat down with the late Godfather of Gore himself, Herschell Gordon Lewis, to discuss his legendary career as an exploitation pioneer and creator of the splatter movie.
Observations on Film Art No. 2
Our home film school continues with David Bordwell’s analysis of Akira Kurosawa’s first film, a showcase for the powerhouse director’s range of talents.
In the following introduction recorded in 2022, film scholar Racquel J. Gates unpacks how Charlie Chaplin’s 1936 masterpiece explores anxieties around technology and bids farewell to the silent era.
This interview with actress Barbara Steele was recorded in 2022.
In the following introduction recorded in 2021, critic Imogen Sara Smith explores the seductive charm and subtle menace of René Clément’s gorgeous Patricia Highsmith adaptation, starring Alain Delon in his breakout role as the duplicitous Tom Ripley.
In this original documentary, David Thompson travels to the Greek island of Hydra to meet up with Athina Rachel Tsangari and discuss her directorial philosophy and what it means to “live cinema.”
This excerpt of actress Jean Seberg discussing the film BREATHLESS and director Jean-Luc Godard was recorded in 1960.
Meet the artist behind a variety of Criterion covers.
In the following introduction recorded in 2021, critic Imogen Sara Smith champions a hidden gem from blacklisted director Edward Dmytryk, who deftly balances suspense and black comedy in this British thriller.
The thinking man’s movie star, Ethan Hawke has moved seamlessly between mainstream hits and acclaimed passion projects for directors such as Richard Linklater and Paul Schrader ever since breaking into Hollywood at age fourteen, garnering Academy Award nominations for both acting and screenwritin...
Friends of Robert and Kathryn Altman reminisce about their unique New York home.
In the following introduction recorded in 2021, critic Grady Hendrix explores Hiroshi Inagaki’s swooningly romantic, boisterously comic, and rapturously colorful SAMURAI SAGA, an adaptation of “Cyrano de Bergerac” that gave Toshiro Mifune one of his finest roles.
This new conversation between critic and programmer Michael Koresky and scholar Shonni Enelow, discussing the films in Queersighted: Stage to Screen, was recorded in 2022.
A titan of the American cinema who emerged from the ranks of the 1970s movie brats with his era-defining screenplay for TAXI DRIVER, writer-director Paul Schrader has pursued a defiantly singular vision in his provocative explorations of guilt and salvation in a soul-sick world. In this original ...
With THE TAKING OF POWER BY LOUIS XIV, neorealist pioneer Roberto Rossellini created the first of the fascinating, often overlooked historical dramas that would define his late career—and reinvented the costume picture in the process. In this edition of Observations on Film Art, Professor Kristin...
In this video program, produced in 2006, actors Ruby Dee and James Earl Jones and filmmaker William Greaves recall Paul Robeson, his impact on African-American culture, and the controversy that plagued his final years.
The Booker Prize–winning author of “A Brief History of Seven Killings” and “Black Leopard, Red Wolf” talks about violence, gay relationships, and desperate characters in cinema, and selects some of his favorite films.
Laura Truffaut shares her memories of her legendary filmmaker father in this 2019 piece by Daniel Raim.
